Alison & desmond
heat stress adaptations in plants
“Plants have evolved physiological, biochemical, morphological and molecular responses to heat stress. When high temperatures recur year after year, plants can develop a heat stress memory. They can adapt their leaves and other structures to better deal with heat. Reduced leaf size or change in leaf shape or color are common adaptations, for example grey leaves absorb less sun than dark green ones. Some species simply avoid growing in the hottest time of year by going dormant.”
In the next stage of our research we will trace mutations that are developing after stressful environmental conditions.
Day 47: Tracing Mutations - Location: Temperate Forests
Alison discovered that while the plants have been desaturating as a result of adaptation to higher temperatures they also started to crossbreed creating new mutations. She tried to go further into the forest but the plants had overgrown the path.
She decided to return to Desmond who was exploring the vegetation close to the bridge.
Desmond noticed that the white immutants multiply themselves rapidly into parachute-like forms. He decided to take some samples to the research lab.
Summer's heat had never really arrived, nor the cold in it's turn, and everything living now seemed to yearn for sun with the anguish of the unloved. The world of sensible seasons had come undone. B. Kingsolver
Large trees have fallen near the meadow. They have been overgrown with climbing hydrangeas.
“If you know how to see, you can see fascinating stories of human-animal-plant communication embedded in the forms of living and dead trees. […]
Cutting the tree did not kill it. On the contrary, cutting caused a sudden wild flourishing of dormant buds that had lurked as potential growing shoots in the cambium layer beneath the bark. Cutting the main trunk removed hormonal signals from the dominant meristems in the upper crown and shed a flood of sunlight on the bark, triggering the emergence and rapid growth of shoots near the stump.”
Arts of living on a damaged planet ( A. Tsing, H. Swanson, E. Gan, N. Bubandt)
Desmond’s Expertise
“As humans reshape the landscape, we forget what was there before. Ecologist call this forgetting the shifting baseline syndrome.
Our newly shaped and ruined landscapes become the new reality. Admiring one landscape and its biological entanglements often entails forgetting many others. Forgetting, in itself, remakes landscapes, as we privilege some assemblages over others.”
Arts of living on a damaged planet ( A. Tsing, H. Swanson, E. Gan, N. Bubandt)
Greenhouse station
Day 51: Restoration of extinguishing species - Location: Greenhouse Station
Alison’s and Desmond’s day starts with a routine check of temperature, humidity and air pressure in their greenhouse lab. Everything has to be in perfect balance in order to keep the whole ecosystem sustainable.
The greenhouse is a complex ecosystem of plants, associated microbes, and fungi at their surface and in the soil. It’s complex but far from the resilience of real ecosystems. Everything has to be carefully planned and executed.
Due to human exploitation, changing climate conditions and overall pollution, most of the species in the lab don’t exist anymore in their natural habitats.
